Nick Shirley: Exposing Government Fraud, Suing California & Taking on the Media

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All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg 32 min 3 speakers 7 chapters transcribed
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What is Nick Shirley’s new “High‑Speed Rail to Nowhere” video about?

Unknown 0:05
Hey besties. If you were given fifteen billion dollars, what could you build? The next PayPal? Perhaps the next SpaceX? The next Google. Or would you build a high speed rail?
Nick Shirley 0:20
This is the California high-speed rail that goes to absolutely nowhere. And when I mean absolutely nowhere, I mean literally nowhere. This is all California had to show for $15 billion in 18 years of work. In 2008 they said they were gonna connect Los Angeles to San Francisco. To this date, they have connected literally Nothing. And now to finish this project, they're estimated it's gonna cost a hundred to two hundred billion dollars. And funny enough, in 2008, China also created their own high speed rail and they've connected the whole entire country of China over 30,000 miles. Here in California, they haven't connected a single town. We're gonna be breaking down this entire thing from start to finish to show you guys what is actually happening with the California high-speed rail.
Nick Shirley 1:06
Let's get into it now. Let's go Talk to somebody who knows a lot about the California high speed rail. What's the truth about the high speed rail here inside of California?
Unknown 1:14
Uh well we call it California High Speed Rail, but all we have is concrete and rebar and about $15 billion spent. It currently is right now the most expensive infrastructure project happening in the world today. The original estimates for California High Speed Rail was $33 billion. It then jumped to $126 billion, and now the newest estimate is $236 billion. This project is on track for one thing, and that is to be the third most expensive infrastructure project in the history of the world. Number one is the Interstate Project of the 1950s. Number two is the International Space Station, and now it is California High Speed Rail. Between those three projects is you can drive on I-5 or you can go on I-80 and drive across the entire country.
Unknown 2:05
You can go to outer space. We will never ride California high-speed rail. Goes
Nick Shirley 2:10
from there.
Unknown 2:11
all the way to right here. This is where it ends. It is probably the most expensive piece of concrete uh known to man and often referred to here in the Central Valley as a modern day stone henge. How come they continue to say that they're gonna continue to build the high speed rail when There's actually proof that it is quite literally impossible. Governor Newsom, in a in a video himself from 2016, I believe, actually admitted to all of us in a private video that he doesn't believe that this project will ever be done in our lifetime. He said that.
Nick Shirley 2:51
And now this is a result of over 15 billion dollars. Who's taking the fifteen billion dollars and where's the fifteen billion dollars gone if
Unknown 3:00
This is all that they have to show for. One third of the entire cost of California high-speed rail has gone to this part called change order delays. Because they didn't know where the infrastructure was and or how to build this actual train, contractors that got awarded a parcel to work on are owed $170,000 a day, $5 million a month for every Single day they can't work. We just settled here in California very recently in February, the largest settlement in a delay settlement for over half a billion dollars. Because a contractor couldn't work on the actual project, they were owed a half a billion dollars. What are some of the biggest examples of waste, fraud, and just complete incompetence by the government when you see this high speed rail.
Unknown 3:51
California was supposed to buy the actual trains and the trains that would be considered high speed rail. The state Дідні байден. my opinion because they know that there will never be a train on these tracks. So California has not even bought the trains yet. No, if we would just buy one-way tickets at current ridership between San Francisco and LA, which is the goal of California High Speed Rail, we could subsidize free tickets one way for the next 150 years. Now, with the new estimate that California High Speed Rail is going to be $236 billion, we could subsidize one-way tickets between San Francisco and LA for the next 300 years.

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